The myth of strivers vs skivers

If you’ve been awake and paying attention in Britain over the last few months, you will have heard of the ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’. These are apparently the two kinds of people in the country. Those that ‘work and want to get on in life’ and those that want to lie in bed in the morning and scrounge off everyone else.

The Conservatives have placed ads like this one:

And then the opposition have replied in kind with this sort of thing:

While the playground barking continues about who is actually on the side of the strivers, who are obviously the goodies in this equation, nobody appears to be actually questioning the premise of the argument. Who are these skivers who don’t work?

The New Economics Foundation has launched a new series of ‘mythbusters‘, looking at some of the popular myths around economics and politics. This week’s is on strivers…